For real estate agents
You, the buyer and the lender should all be working from the same plan. Samantha wants the lender and the agent talking to each other instead of everybody making assumptions separately.
A good listing agent cares how solid the buyer is. The seller is taking the home off the market to accept that offer, and wants to know somebody has looked at the financing. In Samantha's words, “the quality behind that letter matters.”
Before she writes one, she wants to understand the buyer and the whole financial picture: income, assets, credit, employment, debts and the type of property they want. Then she gets the documents to support what she is using. A real preapproval, she says, “isn't me asking three questions and emailing you a pretty letter. There should be work behind it.”
A prequalification can be more of an early estimate built on what somebody says. A preapproval should involve a deeper review, and that is the one she cares about.
Her order starts with a conversation: before the buyer makes offers, and before they list a current home if they have one.
From there the buyer, the agent and the lender know what happens if the next house turns up first, what happens if the current home sells first, and where the pressure points are.
“The actual order can look different from person to person,” she says. “The planning should happen first every time.”
When a sale and a purchase have to line up, she will not plan as if both are certain to happen on the same day.
Adjusted dates when everybody involved agrees, temporary housing, possession timing: the right fix depends on the transaction.
“I want somebody to know what Plan B looks like before they need Plan B.”
Samantha does not want to argue about it. She wants to understand what you are worried about, because there is usually something behind it.
Maybe a past deal went badly. Maybe something looks required that isn't. Maybe the worry is timing. Her answer: “Let's talk about the actual concern.”
A lot of problems disappear when somebody picks up the phone.
Worth a call early
The type of financing doesn't tell you whether somebody is a serious buyer. Her answer to a doubtful listing agent: look at the actual buyer, the transaction and the lender handling it.
How she approaches VA buyersThe year after a Michigan home sells, its taxable value resets to half of the assessor's market value, so the seller's tax bill is not the buyer's tax bill. The calculator works from the property's own published millage.
Run the property tax calculatorLocal agents bring Samantha in for a second opinion when a buyer arrives preapproved elsewhere. If the buyer has a Loan Estimate, the Loan Estimate check reads it in their own browser and lists questions to ask before signing.
Open the Loan Estimate checkSelf-employed is different, not harder. Documentation is usually the biggest change, so she works out what actually applies to the buyer instead of handing over a giant generic list.
How self-employed files workWhen the first call comes after the house is found
The version I see is somebody who starts shopping first.
What I always think is, we could've had this exact conversation months ago when nobody was stressed.
About Samantha
From the first conversation to the closing table, the loan stays with Samantha.
Licensed in May 2020, she started Align Lending that August as a one-woman operation. Align is an independent mortgage broker that works with multiple wholesale lenders. Her recognition includes Hall of AIME, NAMB Broker of the Year and Woman with Vision.
Align Lending LLC, NMLS #2041154. Samantha Shelton, NMLS 1647301.
Check her license on NMLS Consumer Access
Samantha Shelton got it done for my buyers, despite a number of obstacles that had to be overcome. She truly cares about getting folks into houses. She is diligent and thoroughly professional.
Individual experience. Results vary.
If yours is not here, call Samantha and ask it.
A buyer’s loan application is nonpublic personal information under the federal Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, and Align’s privacy policy sets out who receives it. The conversation Samantha wants with you is about the plan: the order things happen in, the timing, and whatever you are worried about.
Samantha doesn’t really think there is a too early. If the buyer is probably buying next year, the conversation might take ten minutes, and they at least know whether there is anything to pay attention to between now and then. Time gives the buyer choices: if a document is needed, there is time to get it.
Then she says so. Even “You don’t really need to do anything right now” is a useful answer, because the buyer can stop wondering about it. Early should make the process easier, not turn buying a house into a year-long anxiety project.
No. In her words: “I wouldn’t tell somebody, ‘You’re in Oakland County, so here’s what your taxes are.’ It doesn’t work like that. We need the actual property.” She estimates them from what the buyer may actually see after ownership changes, not from the seller’s old tax bill.
“It's about giving yourself time,” is how Samantha puts it to buyers. “The early call is almost always easier than the emergency call.”
Tell Samantha what the buyer is trying to do.
Why they are buying, and what comfortable looks like for them.
The buyer, you and the lender working from the same plan.
Align Lending LLC, NMLS #2041154, is a mortgage broker. Samantha Shelton, NMLS 1647301. Equal Housing Opportunity. Licensed in Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, Louisiana and Texas. Nothing on this page is a credit decision, a preapproval, a commitment to lend, or an offer of credit.
Nothing on this page is an offer of anything of value in exchange for a referral. Federal law (RESPA Section 8, 12 U.S.C. 2607) prohibits it.
Shared buyer? Call me before the offer and we'll build one plan together.
Samantha Shelton · Broker Owner · NMLS 1647301
Text Samantha
Texts go to Samantha at (248) 506-5727. 7 days a week, evenings included.
